Doctor George Tiller was shot to death Sunday morning at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas. George Tiller, who worked at the Women's Health Services Clinic, is one of the few doctors who performs late term abortions.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama jetting over to New York for a dinner and a Broadway show for their periodic "date night." Understandably the Republican National Committee is finding this unseemly.

This past Friday, a super laser was dedicated at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory just an hour away from San Francisco. The laser may facilitate the next step toward practical fusion energy.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

The Obama stimulus package is a failure, with no end to the economic downturn in sight, with details of the stimulus projects more often or not an embarassing study in government waste. No problem. The Obama White House has a plan to fix things.

Disney/Pixar has released the teaser trailer for Toy Story 3, coming June 18th, 2010. As with the first two Toy Story features, Tom Hanks voiced Woody, the toy cowboy, and Tim Allen voices Buzz Lightyear, the toy space man.

Proof that war in the 21st Century will be nothing like what it was in the 20th; the US military is starting to test an infantry weapon known as the XM-25 Individual Air Burst Weapon. Unofficially it is called "the Judge Dredd Gun."

The Goode Family, a new animated comedy from Mike Judge, who previously created Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill, premiered recently on ABC TV. The Goode Family turns out to be everything the Hills of Arlen, Texas, are not.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Addendum: The list has an interesting mix of people. There are academics, one former astronaut, a military officer, and two or three from commercial space (old and new.) One of the latter, Wanda Austin from the nonprofit The Aerospace Corporation, is raising some eyebrows and causing certain people on the Internet to jump up and down with glee.

Since The Aerospace Corp conducted the study that purports to prove that the EELV could be used to loft the Orion after all, Austin's inclusion would seem, on the face, to violate Norm Augustine's principle of people who have an open mind. However one suspects that Augustine has gotten private assurances that Austin will keep an open mind, not pushing overtly for the EELV option. Her expertise will be invaluable in evaluating the various alternatives to the current approach.

John Lithgow, better known for his comedy roles on such TV shows as 3rd Rock from the Sun and films like Harry and the Hendersons, will appear on the 4th season of Dexter. John Lithgow plays a serial killer who has evaded the law for three decades.

Newt Gingrich, twittering from Europe, was the latest public figure to decry what many considered Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor's racist comments in a 2001 speech. Gingrich was direct about Sotomayor's racist comments.

The Ecologist editor Pat Thomas warns against turning the Moon into 'a huge open-cast mine': 'The Moon should be protected from exploitation. Our priorities should be here on Earth,' she argues. 'The money we'd use to create a 'lunar economy' could be far better spent on renewable energies and wiping out debt.'

With the California Supreme Court upholding Proposition 8's ban on same sex marriage, supporters of same sex marriage are pursuing one option through the federal courts. Leading this effort, much to everyone's surprise, is Ted Olson.

Along with some rather strange attacks on Your Humble Servant personally, Jon Goff has an even stranger proposal, demanding lunar COTS now and not when there is a market for it.

I've explained why a lunar COTS is not viable now, but apparently Jon and some others need to have the lesson repeated.

A lunar COTS, as with the current orbital version with ISS, would involve several companies vying for the opportunity to transport cargo and people to and from a lunar base. Private companies, likely with government help, would build and operate their own space craft capable of reaching the lunar surface.

Jon seems to think that this would work even before a lunar base is deployed or even before a single human being returns to the Moon. He is wrong, of course.

To illustrate how wrong Jon is, one can only imagine the owner of a rocket company, say SpaceX, approaching a venture capitalist for financing. This would be necessary for the billion or so that a private, entrepreneurial company would require to get a moon ship up and running. The number of private people would could afford to finance such a project out of their own pockets is very small. The subset of people willing to do so is likely Nil.

The first question that a venture capitalist will ask the rocket company CEO is how he expects to make money. The response would be that NASA would pay for transporting cargo and people to and from the Moon. Eventually private customers will come to the fore as the Moon becomes more accessible.

The second question is what guarantee do you have that five or ten years hence NASA will still be willing to pay for such a service? The response will be that NASA has promised to do so.

The venture capitalist will nod, thank the rocket company CEO, and the meeting would end. There would be no funding for the private moon ship because any venture capitalist worthy of the name will be aware of the fleeting nature of government promises. He will be aware about how Congress tends to fund something one year and not fund something the next. He might even be aware that President Obama has hinted on cut backs to he exploration program in the out years. He will certainly not risk a billion or two dollars on government promises.

Now imagine another meeting taking place after a lunar base has been established. NASA is very keen to outsource maintenance of the lunar base so that it can concentrate on Mars or an Earth approaching asteroid. The venture capitalist will note that the government has made a solid commitment to the Moon, not in plans and promises, but in infrastructure. He is more likely to approve funding for the private moon ship.

These are the facts, not rooted in airy, romantic, libertarian notions of how the world works.

The latest Deadliest Warrior, William Wallace vs. Shaka Zulu, took the concept in another direction by pitting not only two warriors separated by time and culture against one another, but two actual fighters known for their love of battle.

The story of Horse Soldiers, a book by Doug Stanton, is one so incredible that it would not be believable as fiction if it were not absolutely true. Horse Soldiers is like John Wayne meets the Arabian Nights as told by Tom Clancy.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The California Supreme Court has upheld Proposition 8, which banned same sex marriage in California. However the California Supreme Court let stand the approximately 18,000 same sex marriages consummated in California before the law took effect.

President Barack Obama has picked Judge Sonia Sotomayor for nomination to become a Justice of the Supreme Court. In Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Obama gets a "twofer" for his first Supreme Court appointment—a woman and a Hispanic.

If Kim Jong-Il were just an eccentric celebrity—say a film actor or a rock singer—his antics and his paranoia would be just the subject of mild interest in the tabloids. Unfortunately Kim Jong-Il is the leader of a country with nuclear weapons.

From this week's Space Review, Bolden's Burdens by Jeff Foust, naturally about what Charles Bolden faces as NASA administrator. and a comparison of NASA to the car companies in Cars versus rockets by Michael Potter.

A piece that discusses the Zeng He expeditions and the lessons it holds for modern space exploration. Rand Simberg recycles an attempt to debunk, but in so doing also recycles a fallacy.

The fact was that Zheng He’s journeys were a failure. They sent out vast amounts of the nations’ treasure with which to impress the heathens and gain tribute and the appropriate respect (just as is the goal for the current Chinese space activities). But when trade occurred at all, the ships often came back with items that were perceived to be of less value than what had been sent out to the ports. The trade was not profitable — it was draining vital resources. The bureaucrats were right.

By that standard, the early European voyages to the Americas were a failure. Columbus certainly did not find the East Indies or much of anything of value. The difference was that the Europeans persevered, continuing exploration, and eventually founded empires. And, by the way, eventually the United States of America, as well as a host of other nations in the New World.

Of course Rand is also wrong about the underlying reason why the Chinese stopped exploration and burned the ships. Economics was a factor, but a bigger factor was the desire of the Chinese bureaucracy to not allow China to be "polluted" by foreigners and their ideas. Not only were government sponsored voyages like Zeng He's stopped, by private voyages into deep water were forbidden on pain of a very painful death.

That's why Europe owned the last five hundred years and China was a doormat for colonial powers duing that time. The current Chinese government has not let that lesson go unlearned.

The most unusual matchup on Deadliest Warrior, thus far, had to be Shaolin Monk vs. Maori Warrior. Not only are the fighting styles of the two warriors different, but so were their entire approach to life and existence.

Angels and Demons is the sequel to the hit film of a couple of years ago, the Da Vinci Code, also from a book by Dan Brown. Like the previous film Angels and Demons stars Tom Hanks as the Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

NASAAccording to Florida Today retired Marine General and former astronaut Charles Bolden has been nominated for the post of NASA Administrator by President Barack Obama. Bolden will replace Mike Griffin, who resigned in January.

Friday, May 22, 2009

President Barack Obama addressed the 2009 graduating class of the Navy Academy and made a number of interesting points that illuminate his approach to national security. One point was dead on, albeit obvious. Two were debatable.

The latest enemy of the people on the Left is Charles Krauthammer, the erudite conservative columnist for the Washington Post and commenter on Fox News. Joe Klein started the ball rolling with a quote in a recent piece in Politico by Ben Smith.

Incredibly, White House staffers attempted to push back on this story, in flagrant ignorance of the elementary political truth that a politician cannot win any argument with a crying five-year-old child. I will be merciful and not reproduce their justification, although I will note that it strongly implies that the parents of a busload of crying five-year-olds are all liars.

The mind boggles. I don't recall this sort of thing happening when the evil Bush, always a stickler for punctuality, occupied the White House.

Now there is not only the rumor that Obama and Charles Bolden had an argument over NASA's budget, but that the meeting got so heated that Bolden withdrew his name from consideration as NASA administrator.

But it is possible to spend less money on space, and it’s even possible to get more for less than we’re currently getting (simply getting NASA out of the launch-vehicle development business would go a long way toward that goal).

Some day Rand will lay out a detailed analysis of what exactly that means. No launch vehicle development means no return to the Moon for the foreseeable future. Even most people who want to go the EELV route admit to the need of a heavy lifter like Ares V in addition. Assembling a Moon ship in LEO with many launches of existing launch vehicles for every lunar expedition is lunacy beyond the boundaries of craziness.

Fuel depots are a good idea, but as an enhancement of the current plan. Eventually, to really unlock the potential of the Moon, we'll need the ability to move a lot more people and cargo than the Constellation architecture can, and fuel depots would be a big help.

Moments after President Obama concluded a lengthy speech defending his administration's terrorism policy—and attacking that of the Bush administration—former Vice President Cheney responded with the mien of a kindly but stern adult giving the facts.

The FBI and the New York Police Department have broken up a terrorist plot to blow up the Riverdale Temple and the Riverdale Jewish Center in a neighborhood in the Bronx as well as shoot airplanes with Stinger missiles.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Keith Cowing is reporting that the Obama Bolden meeting "did not go well." No elaboration, but I am frankly intrigued. What was the source of the conflict? And why was there a conflict, since Obama is no verbose about “finding common ground” with people with whom he disagrees…

Addendum: A revision from Nasa Watch

At least two sources suggest that when Obama suggested to Bolden during their meeting that cuts to the human spaceflight budget might be needed later, Bolden said he would strongly counsel him not to. Otherwise, it was characterized as a pleasant conversation.

I suppose that should indicate President Obama's long term commitment to space exploration.

Follow the plot arc here: A savior with seemingly supernatural powers comes to rescue mankind, and is adoringly embraced by a public desperate for Hope. Not until it’s almost too late do they realize the Change they were promised isn’t quite what the increasingly sinister savior has in mind. (The words “hope” and “change” actually do appear at critical moments here in the trailer.)

Following the lead of the House of Representatives, the United States Senate has voted to block funding for the closure of the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay. The move is a stinging, bi-partisan rebuke for President Barack Obama.

California voters rejected a series of propositions that would have raised taxes and allocated spending in an attempt to close that state's estimated $21.3 billion dollar budget deficit. The result is seen as a rebuke to California's political class.

Ares-I and Ares-V are already mixes of politics and engineering. Doyou honestly think that if it weren't for political pressures out ofFlorida, Utah, Texas, and Alabama, that NASA would've come up with avehicle like that as the best approach? No, the cat's been out of thebag for a long time, and you've publicly admitted it before. Theproblem is that with public funding comes public oversight. IfAres-I/V were the warped dream of some crazy billionaire, I don'tthink you'd see half the complaints from the internet. You'd see somelaughing and mocking, but nowhere near the public outcry. This is ataxpayer funded project, and as taxpayers we have the right to decrywaste, and try to use the political process to fix it. You can't haveit both ways. Especially when you have a clear cut case of agovernment agency using funding to further its own bureaucraticdesires while not meeting the requirements originally set out for it.That's a case where political action is 100% legitimate, if notdemanded by Congress and the President's oversight responsibilities.

And the response:

Jon, I have never said that was not the case. The problem is that there are people, some no doubt well meaning, some with agendas, who want to open the entire design of our exploration architecture to the political process. Partisans of just about every idea are very adroit at pointing out at the flaws (real and perceived) of all of the other ideas.

As someone without engineering training, but with considerable history training, I have to fall back on the latter for analysis. And history teaches us that there has been no technological development project that has not had problems. Good heavens, even the vaunted Falcon took four tries before one actually reached orbit. And you can't say that Elon Musk's project is wholly private. He has taken government money, so the progress of his work is now a part of public interest.

I'm an agnostic about what kind of rocket we us to return to the Moon. But I offer this caveat. The first person on the Moon is going to be the employee of some government. There is no market for going to the Moon that has enough benefit that would attract a private player able to pay the cost.

There is, however, a national security reason for going back to the Moon. That's because that government employee might just be an officer of the Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army. The implications of that are just too dire to let that happen.

Once people are back on the Moon, then there will be a good, core market for private enterprise, Lunar explorers will need all kinds of support that a lunar COTS program could readily provide.

You may not like some of the unseemly things that are being done to get us back to the Moon. But they don't call politics the equivalent of sausage making for nothing.

President Barack Obama presented the new national CAFÉ standards for automobiles. By 2016, automobiles manufactured in the United States will have to operate at 35.5 miles per gallon. The new standards will cost motorists in money and lives.

The rebuttal of NASA's analysis of the Direct concept is now out for examination.

I don't have an informed opinion about Direct either way, except to note that of the alternatives to the current architecture Direct has the most thought put into it. The EELV faction surely hates the idea, for various reasons, mainly political.

I suspect that if Augustine Two finds the current architecture wanting (by no means an assured outcome, despite what some people may believe), then the brawl will have only begun. It will be the consequence of taking rocket design into the political process.

Later this month, President Barack Obama will travel to Los Vegas for a fund raiser for Senator Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader. This has Nevada's Republican governor Jim Gibbons miffed, as Obama has refused to meet with him.

A half a year before the movie itself is scheduled to premiere, the first trailer for Sherlock Holmes, staring Robert Downey Jr. Jude Law, Rachel MacAdams, and Mark Strong has appeared on the Internet.

The 24 Season 7 Finale has ended. Jack Bauer, the long suffering counter terrorism agent, has survived another very bad day—barely. And, sadly, 24 has promulgated an essential Hollywood myth about who is the root of all evil in the world.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel met in the Oval office with President Barack Obama to hear the President's demands for what Israel must do and, more importantly, must not do in the Middle East.

John Mankins discusses the need for more investments in space technology. I have a couple of questions. Is the government the proper venue for deciding which technologies get developed and wich do not? Could the private sector do the development, perhaps with the incentive of tax credits?

Maureen Dowd, the snarky opinion columnist for the New York Times, has been caught in a plagiarism scandal. Apparently Maureen Dowd lifted a paragraph, almost word for word, from a left wing blog called, ironically enough, Talking Points.

Joe Biden, the gaffe prone Vice President, has revealed the secret location of the Vice Presidential bunker. The Vice Presidential bunker has been revealed to be located under the Naval Observatory where Vice Presidents reside.

Apparently the most talked about entry at the Cannes Film Festival is a film called Antichrist, directed by Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier. Antichrist starts out with the slow motion, black and white, stylized death of a child.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

One person who must have been delighted at the controversy surrounding his visit to the campus of Notre Dame must have been none other than President Barack Obama himself. Attention was focused by the media on him and he took full advantage.

Castle, staring Nathan Fillion as a smart alec murder mystery novelist Richard Castle with an eye for detail and human nature and Stana Katic as the straight arrow, by the book detective Kate Beckett with whom Castle is paired, has been renewed for a second season.

A couple of guys whose rocketeer activities were certainly not limited to the Internet have some ideas about how to go forward in space, courtesy of the New York Post. Buzz Aldrin wants to make China a partner in ISS. He's wrong about that, though I could see India, Brazil, and one or two other countries as candidates. Tom Jones, who flew on the shuttle and comments on things space for Fox News, champions the Ares and Orion against their critics.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

President Barack Obama has named Utah's Republican Governor Jon Huntsman as ambassador to China. Jon Huntsman, who speaks fluent Mandarin, is a good fit for the post. But there was also a political consideration.

Pundit Tucker Carlson has celebrated his fortieth birthday and has joined his third cable network, Fox News, as a paid commentator. Tucker Carlson appeared on Fox and Friends Saturday morning to give his views on the news of the day.

President Obama's decision to reverse himself and not release the so-called "torture pictures" was correct and courageous. Unfortunately, thanks to certain foreign media outlets, the decision was likely futile.

Miles O'Brien has some thoughts about the potential nomination of Charles Bolden as NASA administrator.

I hae no particular opinion on Bolden one way or another. The last ex astronaut to occupy the administrator's office was Dick Truly, whose tenure did not turn out very well. That doesn't mean much, except to suggest that contrary to some of the buzz on the Internet having actually flown in space is not necessarily a qualification.

Also O'Brien is reporting that Lori Garver is going to be Bolden's deputy. O'Brien refers to Garver's rather embarrassing astro mom campaign to fly to ISS financed by public prescription. The mind set that would lead one to think that scheme would work is something foreign to me. She would not be my choice for any public office.

Paul Spudis points out that much has been learned since Augustine One which should be taken into account by Augustine Two.

in the intervening twenty years since that Augustine report, several robotic missions have changed the way we perceive the Moon. We found that the poles are very different from the rest of the Moon. The 1994 Clementine mission found large areas in permanent shadow near both poles; the sun never reaches the bottoms of craters here because Moon’s spin axis is almost perpendicular to the plane of Earth’s orbit around the Sun (the ecliptic). Such areas are extremely cold, possibly only a few tens of degrees above absolute zero. Water added to the Moon through bombardment by water-bearing meteorites and comets for billions of years could be retained in these dark areas. Additionally, we found areas in close proximity to these dark regions on mountain peaks rising above the local horizon that are nearly continuously illuminated by the Sun. In 1998, the Lunar Prospector mission found elevated amounts of hydrogen in the polar regions, consistent with the accumulation of excess volatiles (including water).

So what do these discoveries mean for lunar return? We now know that sustained human presence on the Moon is possible, largely because we’ve found a source of near-constant power (permanent sunlight) and a source of sustenance and rocket propellant (volatiles, including water). The robotic Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions showed us that the poles, almost completely unknown in 1990, are inviting oases on the lunar desert. There, we can extract hydrogen and oxygen to make air and water for life support and propellant to fuel rockets. The sunlit areas can generate near continuous electrical power, with regenerative fuel cells providing power for the short duration eclipse periods. Locally obtained power and consumables means that continuous human presence is possible, without the enormous expense or unproven technology of large nuclear reactors and the delivery of massive quantities of material from Earth.

And this means:

The more we learn about the true nature of the Moon, the more the goal of learning to live there on a quasi-self sufficient basis appears feasible. This opens up wholly new areas of operations and commerce in space, undreamed of as little as twenty years ago. It has the potential to change the entire paradigm of spaceflight, from a narrow, government-run, science-oriented program, completely dependent upon the caprice Congressional largess to a self-sustaining, free-market program, in which NASA develops and demonstrates new technologies that open up spacefaring by many different passengers and payloads for a wide variety of purposes.

The Bones season 4 finale, The End in the Beginning, used the device of putting the familiar characters of the show and putting them in new roles, though with the usual situation of an unsolved murder.

Kyle Smith takes note of what he believes to be Ron Howard's willingness to insult Christians, but not Muslim. I'm not sure that Angels and Demons does the former (I haven't seen it yet) but there is a reason for the latter, besides the usual political correctness. Christians tend to forgive those who trespass against them. Muslims, on the other hand, put out fatwas and cause no end of trouble to their enemies. Just ask Salman Rushdie.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Mike Griffin is not impressed with the idea of a review of the Vision for Space Exploration.

"A review that once again asks the question, 'Are the goal posts in the right place? Should we go to the Moon? Should we go to Mars? Should we visit the near-Earth asteroids?' - scrambling that mix again, I think, will not be productive," Griffin said. "The goals have to remain in place for longer than a presidential administration or a session of Congress if you are to get anything out of the space program."

A good point. I favor the review, if only to clear the air and settle certain Internet controversies once and for all, but Griffin's fear is a legitimate one. Abrupt changes of direction that coincide with changes of administration solely for political reasons are not productive.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's latest tortured explanation about what did she know about waterboarding and when did she know it is that the CIA lied to her about waterboarding being used on Abu Zubaydah during the briefings in 2002.

Lost: The Incident, the fifth season finale of the weirdest show on television, is promised to be the end (for now) of the time travel story arc. Lost: The Incident features a lot of jumping around in time, though, and not just between 1977 and 2007.

President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address at Arizona State University. It was a speech that, had it been delivered by a better President and a better man, would have verged upon the inspiring.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Rand Simberg gives the new Augustine Commission it's marching orders. Most are somewhat vague generalities that most people would agree with. However, there is this:

It shouldn’t matter whether it is lunar sortie versus lunar base versus some other destination. Rather, consider an architecture that can address a broad range of requirements beyond low earth orbit. But in order to do that, we need a true equivalent of the Interstate Highway System, not a rerun of Apollo. We don’t just need an infrastructure that is affordable and sustainable. It must also be scalable, to allow an expansion of activity as budgets and markets permit in the future.

That's all well and good, but there are a couple of problems. Is it really NASA's job to do something like commercial transportation that should be built--well--commercially? And is NASA, government agency that it is, even capable of doing that?

My recommendation would be to introduce incentives for the private sector to build a "space interstate highway system" and leave NASA to the task most suited to it, high risk, cutting edge exploration and science.

Then there is this quaint gem, under "Ignore politics":

Think of yourself like a Base Closing and Realignment Commission that provides recommendations for the nation as a whole, not local interests. Let the politicians argue about how to preserve jobs (while ignoring all of the jobs and wealth not being created due to the opportunity costs of their parochial decisions).

Oh yeah, by all means let us ignore the wishes of the people who control the money. It would be a fine thing if all politicians were to high mindedly only follow the national interest. But for those of us who live in the real world, the hard task is to craft the sort of space effort that does serve that interest and will be voted for by the Shelbys and he Hutchisons of the world. That involves, alas, compromise and maybe doing things that are. on close examination, unseemly. But Bismark did not compare Law making to sausage making for nothing.

The base closing commission metaphor is especially inappropriate. The various base closing commissions were voted on by Congress with the promise to abide by their recommendations. The new Augustine Commission was not voted on by the Congress, which would feel itself under no obligation to follow its recommendations should it find them too radical.

Addendum: Rand tries to clarify his position:

The answer is no, and I didn’t say or imply that it was. It is NASA’s job to provide basic technology and incentives to private industry for them to provide transportation services, though. NASA should be a good customer, and purchase commercial services (like propellant from depots, and rides to various locations, including from earth to orbit).

If Rand had actually said that in his Pajamas Media piece, it would have been beneficial. The piece clearly suggests NASA building a space faring "Interstate Highway." In any case we are, so far, in complete agreement, but with one caveat. The time to do all of this is not now, when there is no evidence that the government is actually committed to going beyond LEO, beyond pronouncements and some inadequate funding. The time to start up a Lunar COTS is when there is tangible proof that the government is beyond LEO to stay, such as a small lunar outpost. Rand sort of gets it with the following.

If the private sector had any confidence that NASA would be such a customer, it would be able to raise the funds itself for development of the infrastructure.

Well, duh. If I were a venture capitalist, the way I would have such confidence is for NASA to actually be back to the Moon. Try what Rand proposes today and, as even he implies, no one would be willing to fund it for fear that Congress will yank funding down the road.

Rand goes on:

Though it wouldn’t be unreasonable for NASA to build the first depots itself, to reduce technical risk for the later private investors. This would be the closest equivalent to the Interstate Highway System analogy.

I would regard orbital depots if they make economic and technical sense as a good add on to the current plan. Having NASA test out the concept (with maybe private sector vendors launching the fuel tanks to the Lagrange points) would be a good step.

Finally, Rand stumbles because he doesn't get the essential requirement for everything to fall into place.

What it shouldn’t be doing is developing launch vehicles. We have plenty of those, with better ones in prospect if NASA will provide a sufficient market for them.

There is no market until there are people on the Moon and elsewhere beyond LEO. There are no people on the Moon until (a) NASA does it in the old, expensive style or (b) we wait for the private sector to get around to doing it, by which time we'll be applying to China or some other country for visas. Using (a) we get a small lunar base, let's say, and then the private sector steps in to resupply it (just likes COTS and ISS), only now with the potential for expansion, and NASA goes on to Mars and the asteroids.

That may seem like to Rand to be crossing a square by going around the corners, but in the real world that is often the best way to go.

In a remarkable coup, the Kimball Museum in Fort Worth, Texas has acquired the earliest known work by Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Torment of St. Anthony. It will be the only work of its kind in the permanent collection of an American museum.

It seems that the Obama Administration has found a new thing to worry about. The Obama Food and Drug Administration is going after Cheerios. Cheerios is a common breakfast cereal that has been a staple of many families for generations.

This week's Deadliest Warrior: Green Beret vs. Spetsnaz pitted two elite commando forces from the modern era in a battle to the death. Almost unique of the Deadliest Warrior episodes, Green Beret vs. Spetsnaz might have actually happened.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak at the commencement at Notre Dame University and receive an honorary degree. This has angered pro life students, faculty, alumni, and others who have organized campaigns against it.

Lords of Corruption, the latest thriller by Kyle Mills, is the story of a young man named Josh Hagarty, whose life of bad luck and hard scrabble living seems about to change when he is offered a job running a project in Africa for a charity called NewAfrica.

Norm Augustine, retired CEO of Lockheed Martin, has been asked by President Barack Obama to chair a commission to study the Constellation program to send human explorers beyond Low Earth Orbit. Norm Augustine has done this sort of thing before.

Carrie Prejean can keep her crown as Miss California. That was the pronouncement from on high by Donald Trump, the owner of the Miss USA and Miss Universe Beauty pageants. Thus ended (or at least should end) one of the most absurd kerfuffles in history.

The fifth season finale of House M.D., Both Sides Now, ended with a development that was long expected by House fans. Still, the last ten minutes or so of the House episode came as a kind of shock that is unexpected when it finally arrives.

Monday, May 11, 2009

The space shuttle Atlantis lifted off at 02:01 PM EDT on Monday for the fifth and final Hubble repair mission. The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis will extend the life of the Hubble space telescope until at least 2014.

This month marks a perhaps more obscure 40 year anniversary than the one that will happen this July. The Flight of Apollo 10

Apollo 10 was the final flight of Apollo space craft before the actual Moon landing was scheduled to be attempted by Apollo 11. Virtually every aspect of a lunar mission was tested, with the exception of an actual lunar landing.

The controversy over Wanda Sykes' tasteless performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner is continuing apace. Critics are focusing on the vicious, unfunny things Wanda Sykes said about Rush Limbaugh.

David Feherty, a sports analyst for CBS, proved that he shouldn't give up his day job when he offered a little joke (a very little joke as it turned out) in a Dallas Magazine for which Dabid Feherty had to apologize.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

The White House Correspondents' Dinner is one of those inside the beltway affairs in which Washington insiders, the media, and certain invited guests get to celebrate how wonderful they are. Also the President of the United States has to be funny.

The 65th Anniversary of D-Day is fast approaching. Barack Obama will attend the events on June 6th as George Bush did in 2004 for the sixtieth memorial service. Here is the rub, as of now Obama’s State Department has asked (read demanded) the French government not allow tour guide services to operate that day. It is a big day for Normandy tourism. Yet, the king will not allow those not connected with government to enjoy the day. Obama is very important you know. This is an unprecedented request. I hope the French come to their senses and deny it.

George Bush, on the other hand, was less of a Bourbon Prince when it came to being close to the people.

Compare that with 2004. Security was tight as President Bush and other world leaders were in attendance, but the event was still open to all. A friend relayed the story of waiting in line to use a port-a-potty (a French port-a-potty no doubt, yuck, believe me.) She looks to her left and who he is in the next line waiting patiently? President Bush. Sure he had Secret Service nearby, but he waited like everyone else.

One somehow thinks that Obama discourages even the thought that he actually has to use the bathroom.

That isn’t America and it surely isn’t what those young boys died at Normandy for.

Saturday, May 09, 2009

J.J. Abram's version of Star Trek, the beloved franchise that started as a three season TV show over forty years ago, is spectacular in capturing the character, the humor, and the action that was all that was good about the series.

Friday, May 08, 2009

I]t would be a grave mistake to try to pursue a space program “on the cheap”. To do so is in my opinion an invitation to disaster. There is a tendency in any “can-do” organization to believe that it can operate with almost any budget that is made available. The fact is that trying to do so is a mistake—particularly when safety is a major consideration. I am not arguing for profligacy; rather, I am simply pointing out that space activity is expensive and that it is difficult. One might even say that it is rocket science!

Drew Peterson, the ex police officer whose fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, has been missing for a year and a half, has been arrested on the charge of murdering his third wife, Kathleen Savio, who was found dead in a dry bathtub five years ago.

The latest Body Works Exhibit has opened in Berlin, Germany along with a great deal of controversy. This version of Body Works features a male corpse having sex with a female corpse. There have already been a number of public complaints.

The new Augustine Commission, to be officially called a "Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans." The goal:

The review panel will assess a number of architecture options, taking into account such objectives as: 1) expediting a new U.S. capability to support use of the International Space Station; 2) supporting missions to the Moon and other destinations beyond low Earth orbit; 3) stimulating commercial space flight capabilities; and 4) fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration activities. Among the parameters to be considered in the course of its review are crew and mission safety, life-cycle costs, development time, national space industrial base impacts, potential to spur innovation and encourage competition, and the implications and impacts of transitioning from current human space flight systems. The review will consider the appropriate amounts of R&D and complementary robotic activity necessary to support various human space flight activities, as well as the capabilities that are likely to be enabled by each of the potential architectures under consideration. It will also explore options for extending International Space Station operations beyond 2016.

The National Day of Prayer, first designated by President Truman and made permanent by President Reagan, was celebrated by an ecumenical service in the White House by President George W. Bush every first Thursday in May.

One thing one can say about Lost, it is certainly a different kind of show. What other show has depicted time travel, islands that "move", the dead coming back to life, multiple corporate conspiracies, among other things?

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Rob Coppinger has a bitter thing to say to those who think that the new Augustine Commission automatically means the death of Ares I.

Before this week's review revelations the blogosphere got excited over comments made by acting NASA administrator Christopher Scolese about achieving, in the next decade, a LEO crew and cargo and docking capability and the potential for missions that were beyond Earth orbit but not quite Moon outpost missions

This is one possible end result from the budget compromise due to ISS extension but should not be read as a firm indication of where the agency is going. A Moonbase may still be the target and Ares I may still have its solid rocket first stage come this third quarter

Coppinger describes the process that is about to happen as a "truth and reconciliation" operation.

Truth in terms of what has actually happened over the last five years, what things actually cost to develop and what budget NASA will actually get in the years to come. The full steam ahead "rosy picture" painted by some in NASA over the last few years is apparently light years from the harsh reality we have yet to learn about

And by reconciliation Hyperbola does not necessarily mean the bringing together of previously warring parties but reconciling the need to extend ISS operations with the goal of "returning" to the Moon by around 2020

If you are extending ISS operations, as Hyperbola is expecting NASA to do, you are going to have to review the Moon plan because you simply can not afford to go as far and as fast with one if you are doing the other at the same time.

All I can say is, buckle up. I have a feeling that in the end, no one will be very happy.

More on the ISS extension here. I think that how much or if at all this affects the return to the Moon depends on whether SpaceX can deliver thus mitigating costs of keeing ISS going another four years.

This analysis of Mike Griffin's term as NASA Administrator is a well balanced, candid document that dispells a lot of the canards put out by the Internet Rockteer Club, while still taking Griffin to task for what it regards as his failures. The main failure appears to be dealing with the opposition. The analysis suggests that Griffin was too blunt ad should have schmoozed them, pretending to listen to their concerns, putting them on advisory committees, but giving them no power tomake any decisions. That might have worked or a while, but knowing the folk in the IRC one suspects tha they would not be satisfied with meaningless seats on bogus advisory committee.

Griffin's main problem, as the report states, is that President Bush and the Congress did not provide the support they had promised to keep the return to the Moon program on track. That is a lesson the current President an Congress needs to learn.

Casting Mafia hit men verses the Yakuza, Japan's version of a criminal syndicate, would seem an odd choice for Spike TV's Deadliest Warrior. But it proved to be an interesting, albeit blood splattered and noisy confrontation.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden had lunch together this week. That is not unusual. Presidents and Vice Presidents have been lunching on at least a weekly basis for some decades. The difference was the venue.

With the reevaluation of Constellation about to happen, Henry Spencer is already sure what the verdict should be. Mind, he makes the case for scrapping Ares 1 and going with a modified EELV with far more reason than most, escheweing some of the nuttier conspiracy theories being put out by the Internet Rocketeer Club.

NASA studied this option at some length, and decided that Atlas and Delta just weren't good enough. In particular, NASA thought it would be very expensive to modify them to meet NASA's official "human-rating" standard, which specified what a rocket had to do to be safe for launching people.

Even at the time, some of us had doubts about this. It's unlikely that there was any actual rigging of the analysis, but all too often, the devil is not in the details but in the assumptions.

Of course I'd be interested to know who this "us" is. The more I think of it, the more I begin to think tha a second Augustine Commission may be desirable to settle the question, at least for those people who are rational. I hope that the testimony is public so that it can be followed in real time, before the final report is issued to be chewed over.

Terminator: Salvation is not out yet, and already a sequel is being talked about.

McG is already looking ahead to the next chapter in what the studio hopes will be another trilogy. "I strongly suspect the next movie is going to take place in a [pre-Judgment Day] 2011," McG reveals. "John Connor is going to travel back in time and he's going to have to galvanize the militaries of the world for an impending Skynet invasion. They've figured out time travel to the degree where they can send more than one naked entity. So you're going to have hunter killers and transports and harvesters and everything arriving in our time and Connor fighting back with conventional military warfare, which I think is going to be f------ awesome. I also think he's going to meet a scientist that's going to look a lot like present-day Robert Patrick [who famously played the T-1000 in Terminator 2], talking about stem-cell research and how we can all live as idealized, younger versions of ourselves."

Rand Simberg issues another rant in which he makes personal attacks and utters nonsense.

I think that the Shuttle was a tragic error of historical proportions. But the error wasn’t in the vehicle design per se (though it was a flawed concept as well). The error was in the notion that the government could build a launch system that would serve all of the nation’s space transportation needs.

Good so far. So does Rand propose that NASA try to build, in effect, a lunar version of the STS system?

Now, Constellation isn’t quite as erroneous as that — this time, NASA is only indulging in a conceit that it can build a single launch system for its own needs, and to hell with anyone else’s.

In other words, Rand is proposing that NASA repeat the same mistake it did with the space shuttle, build some kind of system that everyone can use. Not just a national space line, but a national lunar line.

But we cannot have a monoculture. NASA has repeated the mistake of the Shuttle by making its plans and architecture dependent on a single vehicle type (actually, two vehicle types, either of which will shut them down if it fails). There is no resiliency to it, any more than there is currently with the Shuttle.

So is Rand saying that NASA should build two or more vehicles capable of going to the Moon? Not quite.

What I want NASA to do, and would be just as much “NASA’s job” as building an entirely new redundant launch system, is to invest in the technologies and hardware needed to allow us to leave LEO, given that private industry has largely solved (and will continue to improve on solutions for) the LEO problem.

So, leaving aside the quaint notion that private industry has largely "solved" the LEO problem (strange, my trip to the orbiting hotel is not on for next week), what Rand seems to be saying is that NASA should just get out of the exploration business and be a technology hobby house for private industry and that we should wait until private industry deigns to build lunar craft.

At which point we'll have to apply for visas from the Peoples Republic of China, one suspects.

Rand's big problems is that he thinks that the commercial is all. All other considerations, especially national security, are bogus. It would be like campaigning against the Lewis and Clark expedition because it would not build the transcontinental railroad while pushing west.

Shoveling corporate welfare to rocket companies is not the way to incentivize commercial space. Providing core markets (i.e. a lunar base) and being a customer when the service actually exists works better.

Addendum: Rand is really mad now. Leaving aside the personal attacks and the incoherent ravings disguised as policy analysis, I found this interesting:

My point is that private industry can get payloads to LEO, and is not far off (certainly not as far off as NASA is) from getting humans into LEO, given that SpaceX is much further along with Dragon development than NASA is with Ares/Orion. That Mark can’t afford to go is his problem, not private industry’s.

I had thought that the great goal of commercial space was to drive down the cost of getting to LEO. Is Rand saying that just getting payloads into orbit is sufficient? Also, I like SpaceX very well, is actually doing things instead of just talking about it on the Internet. Dragon development is where it is, but it's going to need COTS-D money to start taking people up in the near future. In any event, a lot of the commercial operators are having some of the same cost an technical problems, albeit on a smaller scale, as NASA has. The lesson learned is that space technology development is always harder than is thought. That is true for a nimble entrepreneur as well a bureaucratic space agency. "Rocket science" is not a metaphor for "something difficult" for nothing.

Addendum 2: Now Rand takes his inevitable trip back to the eighth grade by boasting of his own humor and then suggesting that your humble servant is mentally unbalanced. This is what is wrong with space activism, IMHO. If one questions the assumptions of what I call the Internet Rocketeer Club, instead of offering reasoned arguments they go for school yard tactics.

One of the things I have always found off putting is the bottomless rage one witnesses in space discussions. In fact not only the prospect of people returning to the Moon, but private companies becoming real players in space should fill one with wonder and awe. Sure there are problems, both technical and political, but what great human endeavor is free of such?

One of the sad things is that these people don't comprehend how unattractive they look to folks outside the narrow, incestuous culture of space activism. I remember a conversation I had with another writer a few years back and how he described how utterly crazed he thought certain space advocates were. The exception was Elon Musk, whom he interviewed for an article, who came across as calm, reasonable,and yet passionate about what he was doing.

If this report is true and Obama is ordering a new study of the Ares rocket, then the only thing I can say to my friends in the Internet Rocketeer Club is careful what you wish for. The idea of the administration that inflicted upon us the stimulus bill, among other things, now doing rocket engineering should fill everyone with dread. At the very least it will cause months of delays. At worst, it will open up the return to the Moon to the political process to such an extent that we might have to start learning Mandarin if we ever want to see the lunar surface.

Addendum: A source emails me that this may jut be a way to put the argument to rest once and for all. If so, good luck on that. My observation is that the people arguing for other architectures are not very swayed by reason or evidence.

Radio talk show host Michael Savage has been included in a list of sixteen people with the dubious distinction of having been banned from Britain for what is termed "extremist views" and "fomenting hatred.".

USS Freedom, LCS-1 is the newest ship in the United States Navy and the most high tech for her size ever built. LCS stands for "Littoral Combat Ship." USS Freedom's primary mission is to deal with "asymmetrical threats", such as Somali pirates and terrorists.

Actor, comedian, and chef Dom DeLuise died in his sleep Monday night at the age of 75. Dom DeLuise is best known for his roles in comedy films, especially many directed by Mel Brooks. Yet his first film role was in Fail Safe as an Air Force Sergeant.

Monday, May 04, 2009

In one of his periodic rants against NASA's approach to returning to the Moon, Rand Simberg states something that is just incredible:

In my mind, what Constellation should be is the development of an infrastructure that allows us to go anywhere we want in the inner (if not outer) solar system, and then let the national priorities determine what we’ll do with it once it’s in place.

This statement is fantastic because Rand seems to expect that a government agency is going to do this. The problem is that it is not NASA's job nor is the space agency institutionally capable of building and operating transportation systems in the manner he seems to want. Nor should we want NASA to do this. It would be sort of like asking the Department of Transportation system to build a national, high speed rail system.

NASA has proven that it is pretty good at exploring space, which is what Constellation is all about. Mind, a lunar base (and Rand is quite wrong again; Ares V could deliver inflatable habitats to the lunar surface to create a small, lunar base) can be he destination of a lunar COTS program that could grow into a commercial space transportation system.

Of course, the reader will remember, the Obama administration seems to be backing away from a lunar base. My only response is that I am not responsible for folly coming out of the current White House.

If the buzz reflects reality, J.J. Abrams, who is already famous for such hit TV series as Alias and Lost, as well as the third Mission Impossible Movie, is about the pull of the impossible. J.J. Abrams is about to make a 40 year old TV series new again.

ABC's Jake Tapper is reporting that Thomas Lauria, a lawyer and Global Practice Head of the Financial Restructuring and Insolvency Group at White & Case, is accusing the Obama administration of strong arm tactics against opponents of the Chrysler bankruptcy.

Jack Kemp will be remembered for two things. The first is for being the driving legislative force for the 1980s tax cut that broke the back of stagflation. The second is for recognizing that conservative principles could address problems such as poverty.

Saturday, May 02, 2009

X Men Origins: Wolverine is supposed to tell the story of Logan aka Wolverine and how he got to be the fun loving, amnesiac, feral guy with the retractable adamantine claws. What the film viewer gets is a lot of sound and fury signifying not much.

Friday, May 01, 2009

The Food and Drug Administration has ordered a recall of Hydroxycut products, sold in various forms as an herbal based weight loss supplement, because it has been shown to cause jaundice and liver failure in certain people.

President Barack Obama is about to get his first Supreme Court appointment. Oddly enough it is the result not of the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens (89) or Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (76) but of the relatively spry Justice David Souter (69).